BEFORE: Today was "Cyber Monday" - which I didn't realize at first, otherwise I might have scheduled "Hackers", with Angelina Jolie, to follow "Mr. & Mrs. Smith". Oh well - for me it's more like "Catalog Monday" anyway, since I want to start looking through some catalogs to get ideas for Christmas gifts. I feel like I've only got 2 weeks to get it done, though I know it's really more like 4.
THE PLOT: Retiring CIA agent Nathan Muir recalls his training of Tom Bishop while working against agency politics to free him from his Chinese captors.
AFTER: Instead of Angelina, Brad Pitt carries over from last night's film.
Back in the 60's, the Beatles filmed their second movie "Help!" very expensively, on location in places like Jamaica, India and Switzerland, because that's where they wanted to go. They were famous, well-off, and could write their own ticket, so why not? I bring this up for no particular reason - except tonight's film takes place in Vietnam, Berlin, and Beirut - all former war-zones turned vacation spots. Good gig...
Brad Pitt plays Tom Bishop, the young army sniper recruited into the CIA by Nathan Muir (Robert Redford, last seen in "All the President's Men"). Most of the film's action takes place in flashback scenes of their shared operations, as Muir recounts the details to a CIA panel that's deciding whether to rescue Bishop from a Chinese prison, or cut him loose.
But something seems off with the timeline - there's no way that Brad Pitt's character could have been in Vietnam in 1975, not if the framing scenes were set in the present day (2001). Even if Bishop was 18 in 1975, that would mean he was born in 1957, and he'd be 43 in 2001, and he sure didn't look it. Pitt was born in 1963, so we're at least 6 years off - not that an actor can't play an older character, but still it doesn't add up.
Ah, the IMDB informs me that the framing sequences are set in 1991, not 2001 - this was referenced by a character watching a news report marking the 2nd anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This helps - Pitt's character would be 34 or slightly older, not 44. Still, he doesn't seem to age a day in 16 years...
But it's too bad this film was made before that technology that can remove wrinkles from an actor's image (as used on Patrick Stewart in "X-Men: The Last Stand") because Redford's character looks just as old in the 1975 scenes as he did in the 2001 scenes. Too bad, because Redford was a real looker back then, you might say he was the Brad Pitt of the 70's.
In fact a lot of this seemed like a metaphor somehow - with an older CIA agent training a younger one - could one infer that Redford was training his younger counterpart in the craft of acting?
Anyway, I found the movie surprisingly entertaining, and I usually hate films that don't unfold linearly, or use too many flashbacks. But during the whole framing sequence, with Redford's character being interviewed, he was also gaining valuable information about the situation in China, and using what he learned to go over and around his fellow agents - it was complicated, but what about international affairs isn't? And that's what a spy does, assesses the situation, gains intel, then comes up with a plan and puts it in motion. A neat little chess game, that.
Also starring Catherine McCormack (last seen in "The Tailor of Panama"), Marianne Jean-Baptiste, David Hemmings (last seen in "Gangs of New York"), Ken Leung (last seen in "Inside Man"), and Larry Bryggman.
RATING: 8 out of 10 satellite photos
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